Operation An Giang

Operation An Giang (11-19 May 1973) was a military operation of the ARVN of South Vietnam against the military of North Vietnam. Assisted by advisors of the United States, the South Vietnamese were able to rout the North Vietnamese.

Background
On 19 February 1973, the Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War. However, North Vietnam assisted Khmer Rouge, Pathet Lao, and Viet Cong guerrillas in Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam, respectively, and South Vietnam was still aided by special forces of the United States. A major threat to South Vietnamese security in Tan Thuyen, Tri Ton, in southern An Giang Province rose up as Viet Cong insurgents continued their attacks on ARVN troops. The ARVN cooperated with the United States to hunt down the Viet Cong insurgents, with the United States keeping their new mission secret.

Operation
The ARVN troops set out on their mission on 11 May 1973, commanded by Colonel Nguyen Ban Tran. 500 ARVN and US troops were sent to the hot zone to face down with 1,000 North Vietnamese-trained Viet Cong soldiers that were nominally under the command of commander-in-chief Le Duan. The South Vietnamese and US troops razed nearby An Binh and Tay Phu, two other farming communities, and proceeded to attack Tan Tuyen itself.

The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops were armed with a variety of Soviet-made weapons and were aided by Soviet spy planes that were built as recently as two months before. American and South Vietnamese troops took up positions on high ground and in the ruins of local villages, while North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops filtered through a river valley and a nearby destroyed village. Anti-communist forces gained an advantage when they shot down a Vietnamese spy plane and a counter-spy plane in the air, and they also gained the high ground on a rocky cliff overlooking the valley. American B-52s unleashed napalm canisters over the valley and incinerated several North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers in their tracks, and by 19 May 1973 73 North Vietnamese/Viet Cong and 61 US/South Vietnamese troops were killed in action.